It Feels like 1997(and updates)

The Tokyo Game Show is going on this year, and I am getting a feeling I have not had for a long long time. In the olden days, Nintendo set the standard for what came from Japan and what stayed. Some times their decisions seemed rather arbitrary, with even hugely popular game series for the time getting passed up for localization(Secret of Mana 2 for example). It really took the Sony Playstation to open up Japan to us, suddenly the cost of localizing a game was pretty much the cost of paying for a translation. The hardware aspect was super cheap(Cd-roms), and so the cost of a translation team was justified. We are not quite in the 1995 era, a time where even Chrono Trigger barely got green lit to come to America. It does feel like 1997ish to me though. In 1997 you could get a magazine(websites written on thin pieces of mashed trees) and go through the Tokyo Gameshow pictures and say with confidence "coming to America, not coming to America, coming to America, NEVER coming to America". The cost of translation is starting to even become hard to justify to Japanese developers. If Japan is going to do it, then we need to do it ourselves. We are missing out on some wonderful games. Working Designs was an American company that pioneered translations by AMERICANS. They said "if Japan is not going to do it, then we will". Sadly Working Designs is not around any longer, and whatever new company they have made to soak up investing money does not really do a lot of games. Don't get me wrong, I love me some good American RPG's, but even the best of them are rooted in scifi novels and tv shows I have personally watched. I can pick apart even Mass Effect by revealing what Twilight Zone or Star Trek episode they got their bit of dialogue from. As much as Japan gets crap for having a "status quo" mentality, US rpg's have not evolved since the 80's. I guess I'll have to look to Europe for my Deus Ex's and Witchers. Of course all of this means small release numbers of some rare gems out of Japan.... sometimes the collector in me disgusts me :P Ok, rant off. Updates on. I have only a few PS1 updates to go before I feel like I've said all I can really say of it. Soon I will be adding to my Sega Genesis collection(FINALLY) and so I will have moved to adding info about that system. I know the Sega Genesis is not as well represented on the internet as the SNES was, but there are tons of missed out goodies on that system on par or even better than what the SNES offered. My next updates will include a guide to collecting manuals, as well as a resource for comparing manuals to make sure you have a real one and not a photocopy. Also a final statement on PS1 collecting.

The Science of Rarity: A Look at Suikoden 2

The number one rule of rarity is the amount of available product or commodity.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Suikoden had large shipments sent to America, but the sales were rather small in comparison. I started seeing cases of these games pop up in super markets being sold for 10 bucks, and this was before our super markets started carrying anything that wasn't from the rental area. Enough RPG-starved, early buying PS1 pioneers bought the game to warrant a sequel being localized. The sequel arrived, but gamers found that little had changed since Suikoden. In a world of RPG's with 3D fighting and long CGI cutscenes of important events, Suikoden 2 looked 5 years old upon release. A few people did not mind and they bought the game anyway. These people become important later...

From Game Collecting with Rick

Suikoden 2 sold badly. Well under what was expected when compared to its competition. If there was even a 2nd shipment of more copies of this game, it was a trickle. Not that it mattered, the internet was just getting started on word of mouth. Suikoden 2's success is pulled from those few people that loved the game making lots of noise about it over the internet. Soon everyone wanted to try it, and copies that were left over were snatched up. These were not collectors, these were people that wanted to play a hidden gem of a game. I remember when Suikoden 3 came out, a rumor came about that there would be no more shipped here... and players not wanting to be left in the dust like with Suikoden 2 stormed the stores and bought up every copy they could find. This proved to not be the truth, there was plenty to go around at that time. Either way, this tipped off Ebay. Ebay speculators ran up the price of Suikoden 2 to above $100 over night.

From Game Collecting with Rick

The price briefly dipped when it was announced Suikoden 1 and 2 were coming to the PSP. Only later we found out that it was not coming to America... price shot up again. Repeat this with Suikoden coming to the PS3's PSN network for download, there has yet to be a rating given to Suikoden 2, meaning we are no where near it coming to PSN. So let's look at the rarity checklist:

Small print run due to poor sales: Check

Players buying up unopened copies so they can PLAY them. Check.

Ebay speculators buying up remaining stock. Check

No additional versions of the game. Check.

Look at the other valuable RPG's on the PS1. Lunar came out on the GBA and Sega CD. Final Fantasy 7 sold MILLIONS and is on the PSN. Even Valkerye Profile has a re-release on the PSP. The only legal way to play Suikoden 2 in English is to buy a copy from the original pressings. That makes it rare.

More Than Games: Guides!

Misconceptions, misconceptions misconceptions. Strategy guides are considered glorious to some and reprehensible to others. Some claim that game makers started putting in activities in their games that would force you to buy a strategy guide to figure out(wrongly accused is the chocobo racing in FF7 for example). Others call them a crutch that bad game players use to make up for their lack of skill. I myself kind of look down upon using a guide on the first time through... but I game for the surprises, and hate spoilers with a passion. I can accept that there are people out there that just do not play the way I do. But this post is about collecting, and strategy guides are just as collectible as anything else in the industry. Some companies have made limited runs of a guide, or made special hardback editions of the guides, and if you like to collect, it is viable to go for these. Monetarily? Probably not. You're probably going to pay more than you'll ever get back for these, but there are reasons to collect.

From Game Collecting with Rick

What I have here is an art book, Final Fantasy 9's US artbook. Most art books of the PS1 era stay overseas. They are hard to come by, so for those that love "the chase" will love importing this kind of stuff. For the average collector, that is just a bit too far. Once you pay 40 dollars for an art book, you have to import it from Japan most likely, and what happens if your book is damaged in the transit? Not a happy thought to a collector.

From Game Collecting with Rick

This beautiful page of Vagrant Story artwork is not from an art book. This is the strategy guide. Many strategy guides are wonderful collections of character and landscape art. The hunt comes in because you have to find the ones that actually have this kind of stuff and not just screenshots of the game.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Strategy guides are also useful to breath some new life into a game you have played many times and years before. You can find stuff you did not know about, and perhaps even find whole stories you had never found before. Suikoden is a series where people want the strategy guides to gather all the characters. Suikoden has a kind of Pokemon collector's line to it, and if you collect all the characters, you open entire chapters of game play. Bad translations, especially in the first and 2nd game, have made it almost impossible to get all of them without a strategy guide. Sure there are Gamefaqs, but why not get some excellent artwork found in the guides as well.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Guide hunting for the average game is cheap. As I said, this is not a monetary collection market(as of 2011). Five to seven dollars will get you the guides to most games. There are a few famous guides, but they almost always are more infamous than famous. The Brady guide to Final Fantasy 7 spoils the story of the entire game in the first 10 pages. Why not own that little bit of game history? The newest is the Mortal Kombat guide. A guide with very high quality photo paper and binding, but almost no helpful information. Its production cost is so high, they confirmed they will not be printing another set. So it will become rare, and even if it is not particularly helpful, it is very pretty. Cheap, plentiful, tons of options, beautiful artwork and even rares to track down. Sounds like another home run for a collector's market to me.


I need a banner down here, I dont how the end of my posts get lost in the legalize.